Monday, August 09, 2010

Looking through some old notepads the other afternoon, I happened upon one that contained scribblings of a heretofore unrealized post about an Anecdotal Fast Food Manifesto. The idea was simple: like the undomesticated American Trucker, the Touring Band is often faced with culinary questions that bedevil even the greatest philosophers of our time. Will you choose the liquid-beef shit-farm that is Arby's or the poisonous gut-riot that is Bojangles? What is the true and proper order at Taco Bell? Is there a difference between Hardee's and Carl's Junior? Respectively, the answers are neither, crunchy tacos, and at Hardee's you get melted plastic on your American "cheese." They are the fine points, surely, best left unanswered save by the most harried connoisseurs.

When I was writing this, fast food had had it's fair share of the crap-spotlight in recent memory. "Fast Food Nation" explained the mad-chemist-underworld of Yum! Foods and their various subsidiaries. "Super Size Me" allowed us to watch a real live human devolve into a joyless greaseman with erectile disfunction. "Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle" reminded us that stoners eating burgers are funny. But what was missing from the kinda-sorta-recent spate of fast food commentary---with its dour nutritionists, angry foodies, and Guinea Pig-Men--was a simple user's guide. We all know fast food is bad. What you might not know is which fast food is more badder.

Of course, we're touring less these days. The four o'clock drive-thru is a thing of the past, replaced instead with a robust and varied diet of ham, ham, and ham; my sweat smells of piglets. I no longer feel like I had the clout and vigor and expertise to properly handle a subject fraught with intricacies like "which kind of disturbing creamy juice should I allow be slathered on this pseudo-beef or that quasi-chicken?"

There are things I miss about living in a van, sleeping in gecko infested hotel rooms, and meeting various and sundry folks from hitherto unknown townships. Fast food? Not one of those. Playing music every night? Absolutely one of those.

We've all coped with this distressing lack of harmony in our own personal ways. David raps about his hard-knock upbringing as a middle class Street Fighter aficionado; Zach plays drums on the bellies of his kittens. Me? I watch Tombstone on an endless loop in a quest to create a Wagnerian opus that will make you change your pants after you crap your pants after you shit your pants. Peter, meanwhile, spent a few weeks and weekends in Maine, recording a solo album that, if you'll trust your humble narrator, is seven kinds of happiness.

This brings us to the whole point of this here missive. Peter, known on Tuesday, August 17th as Sonny Pete, will be playing a gig at Hotel Utah. He's promised me he'll dress well, which I assume means a taffeta evening gown with an understated aquamarine veil, and he's promised me it's going to be lovely. I don't know about you, but I'm going. He'll have a single there, so you can pick that up as well, and, well, it's Tuesday. I'm sure that the Real Housewives of Greater Bakersfield is on but that's why you sprung for TiVo. Come on out and enjoy some merriment. There's a poster and everything: